by USA TODAY staff and wire accounts, USA TODAY

by USA TODAY staff and wire accounts, USA TODAY

The Vatican unveiled Pope Benedict XVI's Twitter account on Monday and more than 200,000 folks "followed" hashtag #askpontifex even though the pontiff won't post his first tweet until Dec. 12.

The idea is that people can tweet their questions about faith to the pope -- eventually. Initially, like the tweets posted in his name in the past, the postings will be "pearls of wisdom" from his speeches, Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president of the Vatican department for communications, said at a Vatican press conference.

The 85-year old Benedict, who has written several best-selling books by crafting his prose in longhand on paper, will not be at the keyboard. But "nobody is going to be putting words into his mouth," said Greg Burke, a former Fox News journalist who is now a senior Vatican adviser for communications. "All words will be the pope's words," he told Religion News Service.

They'll also be translated into Spanish, French, Arabic, Polish, Italian, Portuguese and German.

The Vatican will soon launch a new mobile app for smartphones, which should be available for free on iTunes by year's end, and will start producing its own e-books. "The Pope App" will allow Catholics to follow papal Masses and events in real time, and to peek inside the Vatican through webcams.

Without explicitly citing Twitter, Benedict wrote in a 2012 message on communications that "concise phrases, often no longer than a verse from the Bible," can convey "profound thoughts."

The Vatican also sponsored an international conference for bloggers to talk about conveying faith messages in social media. And in November, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops followed suit with an similar gathering of U.S. bloggers during the bishops' annual fall meeting in Baltimore.

Twitter's manager of Social Innovation Claire Diaz Ortiz welcomed the pope and pointed out that spiritual voices from "globally-recognized names to local pastors and faith groups... embrace Twitter to minister to their communities and share meaningful messages."